Independence
by ncisabbylover
Summary: Pre-season 8. Kensi spends her first day home alone since her injury confined her to a wheelchair. Originally written for the NCIS LA Hiatus Fic Exchange. My original speculation written pre-season 8


Season 8 speculation. Kensi is frustrated about being stuck at home in a wheel chair. She's bored and decides to put her time to good use by learning to cook. She's been watching Julia and Roberta for the past couple of weeks. She can't properly reach the stove and ends up setting a tea towel on fire and burning her fingers. When Deeks gets home from work he finds the kitchen in a mess and Kensi is sitting in the downstairs bedroom they moved into because she can't make it up the stairs, staring out the window.

Kensi had never realised how tall bench tops were until now. She'd always been fairly tall herself. She could still wear heels and when she slipped them off she could fit comfortably under he boyfriend's chin, but she'd never been one to have trouble reaching the top shelf. Being confined to a wheelchair was giving her a whole new perspective on things though.

She'd been incapacitated due to injury before, a sprain here, a fracture there, she'd even been in a neck brace for a few weeks once. But none of that came even close to what she was experiencing now. The doctor had said it was temporary, that once the inflammation around her spinal column went down she would regain the use of her legs. It had been five weeks now though, and she'd been yet to even wiggle her little toe.

Marty had been by her side, supporting her in the hospital for the full two weeks she was there. After they arrived home, he'd basically waited on her hand and foot, was at her every beck and call, until it started to feel like he was smothering her and she insisted he go back to work. Then, for the next week, Julia and Roberta had traded shifts back and forth, looking after her, cooking for her. The house had never been so spotless. They hovered even more than Deeks and Kensi was getting restless. She needed to regain some of her independence. And so, being the tough, kick ass, adult federal agent that she was, she lied. She'd told Roberta that Julia wanted to do an extra day with her and had let Julia assume Roberta was taking her shift as usual. She felt like a high schooler, telling her mom that she was staying at a friend's for the night when really she was going to a frat party.

It had been worth it though. It had been worth it to go to the toilet by herself, to move herself around without someone asking if she wanted help. It had be nice just to be alone with her thoughts, and Monty of course, in a way that she hadn't in six weeks. She'd even managed to shift herself from the chair to her bed to have a nap. She woke up from said nap at four and grabbed her phone from where it lay on the nightstand. She had a slew of texts from Deeks. Ever since she'd complained that she felt disconnected from the team a few weeks ago, he'd be sending her messages throughout the day. Mostly they were selfies or short, secretly filmed videos of Sam and Callen bickering like an old married couple. Today was two selfies, a video of Eric with his latest whistle replacement, a ukulele, and a short message telling her he'd be home around six.

Six. It left her two hours to complete the final thing she'd wanted to do today. Both Roberta and Julia had insisted on cooking dinner when they were here. At first, Kensi had been too tired to really pay much attention but then, she started joining them in the kitchen, watching them as they cooked and moved around the room with an ease Kensi doubted she could ever master, even without the wheelchair.

Still, if she couldn't be the partner he needed in the field, she wanted to prove to Deeks that she could be the girlfriend he deserved to come home to. The one who could cook and clean and take a load off his shoulders. She'd never wanted to be that girl before but now, without her job and without a 100% guarantee that she'd ever get back to it, she needed something to hold onto and she'd somehow found purchase in this.

She manoeuvred herself from the bed to the chair, wheeled herself into the kitchen, and set about making dinner.

X

Something was burned. He could smell it even as he was coming up the drive way. At first he though it must be one of the neighbours. Neither Roberta or Julia would let something get so out of hand. They were phenomenal cooks. But as he approached the door the smell got stronger and stronger. Panic started to set in. Kensi. Something must've happened to Kensi. She was hurt, or worse, and one of their mothers had left the stove on in the rush to get her help.

His heart rate increased, adrenaline dumping in his system, causing him to fumble the key in the lock.

"Kensi!" He called to her as soon as the door was open. "Kens!"

No answer. Walking into the kitchen turned him speechless. Dirty dishes were stacked along the counter top. A large glass dish lay shattered on the floor beside the oven, what looked to be lasagne spattered around the broken shards. There was half a tea towel in the sink, the other half gone up in smoke if the singed edges were anything to go by. He coughed, clearing the lump from his throat, and called out again.

"KENSI!"

"I'm okay." Her reply was soft and small and barely audible from the other room but he heard it and his heart rate lowered ever so slightly.

He found her in the downstairs bedroom. It had originally been the study but with Kensi unable to get up and down the stairs and unwilling as she was to move house, he'd bribed Callen and Sam with pizza and beers to move their entire bedroom from the second storey down to the smaller room. It was a tight fit but they'd managed to make it work.

"Kens?"

"Hey." She was sat in her wheelchair at the foot of the bed, staring out the window onto the street, shoulders slumped, unwilling to turn around.

"Hey," he moved around to stand next to her, leaning forward to try and see her face but she turned her head away. "Can I sit?"

"Sure."

"Hey Kens?"

"Mmm?" She shifted her head in his direction in a sort of nod but still refused to look at him.

"You want to tell me about the hurricane that passed through our kitchen."

Kensi shrugged noncommittally, "Not really."

Deeks chuckled and reached around to grab at the chair, pulling it until she was turned to face him.

"What happened Kens? Where's your mom?"

"She wasn't here today."

"Okay, so where's my mom?"

Kensi looked at the ground, feeling every bit like the teenager who had been caught going to a frat party instead of staying at her friend's house.

"I just, I wanted a day by myself."

"Okaaaay."

"And it was fine. It was perfectly fine. Everything was going great. You left for work and I got myself up and made cereal for breakfast. I watched TV, I let Monty out into the back yard, I even took a nap. It was so nice to just be alone."

"That's good Kens. I'm glad. But what about the kitchen?" Deeks coaxed.

"I… If I can't have your back in the field, if I can't be your partner right now, maybe ever again, I wanted to show you I could still have your back at home."

"So you tried to burn the house down?"

That finally got a reaction that was more familiar and he rubbed the spot on his leg where she'd playfully slapped him.

"No, smartass. I tried to cook you dinner. Try being the operative word. It didn't go so well."

"I saw." He smiled at her cheekily, earning another smack to his leg. "So?"

"So what?"

"So, what happened?"

Kensi drew in a deep breath and then let it out again.

"Fine. I was cooking lasagne. I watched your mom making it the other day and it looked easy enough. So, I started to boil the water but in the chair, I'm too short to see over the stove and so I was bringing the pot down to where I could see it. The tea towel caught fire as I was trying to put the pot back on the stove. I doused it in the sink and everything was fine. I made the lasagne and it smelled so good Deeks. As I was pulling it out of the oven though I burned my hand and I dropped the whole dish. It shattered. I burned my leg too. I'm not sure how bad. It doesn't hurt as much as my hand. The dish kind of bounced my legs before it hit the ground."

Deeks was already grabbing her hand. Angry, red welts had started to develop on her palm.

"Let's get you sorted." Deeks stood from the bed and moved behind her, gripping the handles of the wheelchair. "Is it okay if I push you to the bathroom?"

She'd yelled at him a few times now for stripping her of her independence by pushing her around the house and he'd quickly learned to ask if she wanted help. She usually declined.

"Yeah, okay."

Deeks leaned forward and kissed the crown of her head as he guided her through the house and into their downstairs bathroom. He rifled around in the cabinets for a moment before coming to sit on the toilet seat, dragging Kensi closer to him.

"Give me your hand."

She complied and winced as he gently applied the burn salve before wrapping it with gauze.

"You know, I don't want you to be the perfect housewife. I'm not with you because you can cook and clean and our relationship would be in trouble if I was. The doctor's still think the paralysis is temporary. You'll be back in the field with me soon. We just need to give that inflammation a chance to settle." Kensi looked like she was about to interrupt but Deeks beat her to it, "And even if it never happens. If you are in that chair for the rest of your life, you will get a kick-ass job. I'm sure we can convince Hetty to install an elevator in the mission. We'll have you working in ops, whispering seductively in my ear as I beat down doors and take out bad guys."

That got a laugh.

"Does it hurt?"

Kensi shrugged, "My pain threshold is a lot higher than it used to be."

Deeks nodded, his brow furrowed in concern, and finished wrapping her hand.

"Do you want to look at your leg?"

"Yeah, probably should."

Deeks leaned forward and kissed her on the lips, sliding his tongue along her bottom lip until she opened to him. He kissed her deeply until she moaned and he grinned.

"I missed you today."

"You say that everyday." Kensi smiled, leaning forward to press her lips to his once more, this time in a chaste kiss.

"It's still true. Now come on, let's see the damage."

"Oh, I see how it is. Just trying to get me out of my pants." Kensi teased, moving so Deeks could help her shimmy out of the pants.

"Always." Deeks placed another devastating kiss against her lips, nipping her top lip as he pulled away.

There was a red patch of skin on her thigh but no welts.

"See, it's not that bad." Kensi argued while Deeks rolled his eyes. "It probably only needs you to kiss it better."

Deeks barked out a laugh at that but complied, leaning forward to place a series of kisses around the red oval on her leg, "How about we clean up the kitchen and order Chinese?"

"Mmmm, how about you clean up the kitchen and I order Chinese," Kensi parried.

"That hardly seems fair seeing as I wasn't the one who decided to cook for the first time in my life while confined to a wheelchair."

"Fine. I'll help. It's not like I can do much anyway." Kensi relented.

"Just come and keep me company." Deeks patted her shoulder as he moved past her, headed for the kitchen.

"Deeks?" Kensi called from the bathroom still. He stuck his head back in and looked at her. "My, uh, my hand actually really does hurt so I was wondering if you could maybe… give me a hand… back into the kitchen."

"Anything for you Princess." He leaned forward as he pushed her, smacking a loud kiss to her cheek that made her roll her eyes and laugh.


End file.
